Georgia delegates work to pull support for Kerry

After the Democratic National Convention

Posted: Sunday, August 01, 2004

By Brian BasingerMorris News Service

BOSTON - Fueled by four days of Democratic zeal, Georgia delegates headed home this weekend from their party's national convention aiming to translate partisan verve into presidential votes for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

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At the same time, Republicans across the nation and in Georgia dismissed what they uniformly termed the convention "makeover" of Kerry, who they say is a Northeast liberal unfit to replace President George W. Bush and lead the nation in the post-9/11 world.

Comforted by a race that is still neck-and-neck on the national level, Democrats were quick to acknowledge Kerry's uphill battle in the South, where Bush won a decisive victory in 2000 and continues to hold a strong lead, with the exception of a persistently close battle in Florida.

But there's still a chance that support for Kerry could spur Democratic turnout in local races, said Augusta delegate Lowell Greenbaum, chairman of the Richmond County Democratic Party.

"We will immediately translate the emotion that we have into a working effort to get out the vote, and getting out the vote takes months. It's not simply calling a few people to go knock on doors," he said.

Greenbaum gave high marks to his party's newly coined campaign mantra: "Hope is on the way," unveiled by Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards in a passionate speech Wednesday and further nuanced by Kerry in his nomination acceptance the following night.

"It's a great slogan and will energize a lot of people," Greenbaum said.

Athens delegate Barbara Sims, chairwoman of the Georgia Democratic Party's 12th U.S. Congressional District Committee, said her efforts won't stop at asking residents in Northeast Georgia to fill out a voter registration card.

"One hundred times more important is getting people out to vote. We've got a lot of registered voters who just don't vote," said the BellSouth labor union representative.

Augusta delegate Mtesa Cottemond said she was motivated by the words of the Rev. Al Sharpton, the former primary challenger to Kerry who argued to the convention on Wednesday that the Democratic Party has earned the support of black voters over the years.

"We vote for those who help us," Cottemond said. "We have to go back and remind African-Americans that (Democrats) have been helping us and let's not take it for granted."

Georgia Republican Party spokesman Marty Klein said he wasn't worried about Kerry seeing an expected rise in the polls, noting the GOP convention opens in New York City in late August and will likely earn Bush a similar post-convention bounce of support.

"Historically, there has been a large bump the candidates have gotten from their convention," Klein said Friday in a telephone interview from his office in Atlanta. "We have an opportunity in a month to share with the people of Georgia and the people of the nation our vision for leading the country and when the people have a chance to compare the two visions and the two plans, they're going to clearly align with our vision."

Klein said he believes the unified front presented by Democrats during their convention won't be enough to sell Kerry to independent voters in battleground states like Florida, Missouri and Ohio, or to moderate Democrats in the South.

"Expensive videos and balloon drops aren't going to hide the fact that John Kerry was the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate," Klein said, referring to a survey by The National Journal, a weekly publication for Washington insiders, which listed Kerry's voting record as further to the left than any of his 99 colleagues in the Senate. "That record isn't going to work in Georgia."

Merle Black, an Emory University political science professor, said Friday he doubted Kerry gained much ground in the South with his "reporting for duty" speech, in which Kerry pushed for stem-cell research, tax increases for the wealthy and called for the United States to develop its own energy sources so the nation wouldn't be dependent on oil from "the Saudi royal family."

Black said former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland probably will see his stock rise among Southerners more than any Democrat who attended the convention.

Cleland, a triple amputee who lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam, gave an impassioned introduction of Kerry on Thursday night and has campaigned vigorously for the Massachusetts senator in an effort to highlight Kerry's own U.S. Navy experience.

The convention crowd greeted Cleland with a 60-second-plus standing ovation, while Georgia delegates waved red placards emblazoned with "MAX" in large white letters.

"I think that was the best speech we have seen from (Cleland) in years. He was quite spectacular," Black said. "He's clearly an asset to John Kerry."

Republicans are quick to point out that Democratic U.S. Sen. Zell Miller has endorsed Bush for re-election and will be speaking at the Republican National Convention in a prime-time address.

Black called Miller's presence at the RNC "very polarizing."

"Republicans and independents are very glad to see him there and Democrats are very disappointed to see him in that role."

Leaders of the Georgia Democratic Party said they were pleased by the tone of their own convention, giving high marks to Kerry's call for "unity in the American family, not angry division."

State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said, "One of the things I am really excited about is reducing the partisan rancor, so to speak, and that is hard to say here at the Democratic National Convention.

"I have heard it over and over again, we have to be a nation that is not so much caught up in Republican or Democrat, red or blue, black or white, but a nation that is united and work to maintain this nation as the richest, most prosperous, safest nation in the world."